The Sky is Green
by Etana1
Summary: Luke has decided that there is no one for him but Lorelai, but can Lorelai catch up with his plans? Follows the LL story after the Season 4 finale. [[COMPLETE]]
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've read and appreciated a fair amount of fan fiction over the years, but I've never felt the need to write my own. Still, I've often felt if there's a story that needs to be written then there's only one thing to do--write it. When I saw the finale, I was as excited about that much anticipated kiss as anyone but I also noticed that Lorelai wasn't lovingly gazing into Luke's eyes after that kiss. She looked shocked and a little scared, like someone she had come to rely on and even take for granted a little had turned her world upside down. Lorelai scared is an interesting character and the Luke we've seen in recent weeks, who knows absolutely what he wants, is also a very interesting character.  
  
Both of which hopefully lend themselves to an interesting story.  
  
Thus this will likely only be a few chapters. Be kind, it is my first fanfiction. But lots of feedback is good, because it is my first fanfiction.  
  
SPOILERS: Probably just for the season 4 finale, but consider anything that has already aired to be fair game at this point.  
  
COPYRIGHT: The characters belong to the wonderful writers who created them.  
  
......  
  
...........  
  
Lorelai's head was swimming as she drove her jeep back from the house to the Dragonfly. Too much had happened that night and, even in the dead, quiet streets of a sleeping Star's Hollow she couldn't seem to process it all.  
  
She had opened an inn.  
  
Luke had kissed her.  
  
Her parents were officially splits-ville.  
  
She had kissed Luke.  
  
She had seen a naked Kirk running through the square.  
  
Rory had become an adultress.  
  
After their fight Rory had come sobbing back into the house and locked herself in her room. Part of Lorelai had wanted to stay and comfort her, but another part just didn't know what to say. Rory and Dean had done the unthinkable and there was nothing Lorelai could say--or would say--that could take the shame out of it.  
  
For now though, she needed to be back at the inn and so she continued to wind her way through the night.  
  
......  
  
...........  
  
Luke sat on the front steps of the inn waiting for Lorelai to return. He had just calmed Kirk down enough to send him back upstairs to Lulu for what was certain to be an interesting talk. On any other night Kirk's eccentricities would have driven Luke to distraction, but tonight was not like any other night and oddly Luke knew all about the crazy things people do for love.  
  
He had kissed her.  
  
He could still feel her on his lips and under his hands, as if he had been branded by her touch.   
  
He had kissed her and it had been everything.  
  
It was the reason that man scaled mountains and wrote sonnets. A hundred cliches about romance he once would've been far too jaded to utter aloud, suddenly made sense. Everything made sense. The answer to the question of the universe was not 42--it was Lorelai.  
  
Luke smiled at this. He'd done a lot of smiling lately. He was vaguely surprised that all his smile muscles still worked.  
  
There was only one person that could ruin Luke's mood and it was in that moment that he strolled around the corner.  
  
......  
  
...........  
  
The headlights of the jeep swept the darkened inn as Lorelai turned into the inn's small parking area near the entrance. It was between the warm porchlights that she and Luke had shared their first kiss.   
  
It still seemed unreal. It was as though someone had told her "today the sky will be lime green and the oceans bright orange" and then walked away leaving her dazed in a world that had quite suddenly gone fluorescent. It wasn't that she didn't like fluorescent. She did own a fair amount of shockingly coloured attire after all. It was just, she was used to the sky being blue and the oceans being blue. She liked blue. Blue was reliable. Blue had always been there. Blue like the hat she'd given Luke so many moons ago.  
  
As Lorelai stepped from the jeep, she heard voices carrying across the dimly lit square. Angry voices. Oh, what if they woke the guests? If Taylor lost a minute of his beauty sleep she'd never hear the end of it.  
  
Lorelai jogged toward the inn's entrance and found yet another crisis unfolding--Luke and Jason ripping into each other with heated words. They didn't even notice her approach.  
  
"I won't ask you again," Jason was saying. "Where is Lorelai?"  
  
"I... don't... know," Luke said slowly as if speaking to a five year old. "And even if I did, I think she's made it very clear that she doesn't want you here so why don't you just go home."  
  
"What are you, her bodyguard?" Jason snapped. "You get to approve or disapprove of who she dates."  
  
"I think Lorelai can make up her own mind about who she dates," Luke said smugly, perhaps a little too smugly.  
  
Jason's eyes narrowed, "So is that it, burger boy? You think you're good enough for her. You think you can offer her half as much as I can."  
  
"I've proven to Lorelai what I can offer her," Luke said firmly. "Fancy car, big money and sueing her father. Yea, you've done loads for her."  
  
"We are right for each other," Jason said glaring Luke down.  
  
"No, WE are right for each other," Luke said taking an omnious step closer.  
  
"ENOUGH!"   
  
The two men snapped their heads around to see Lorelai, her arms full with CDs and bandaids, staring at them in disbelief. "Unbelievable! So what's it going to be? Pistols at noon? Duelling swords at sunset? Plastic shovels at the sandbox?"   
  
"Lorelai, I-" Jason began, but Lorelai cut him off with a wave.  
  
"Jason, leave now or I swear to God I will sick Michel or Michel's Chows on you--whichever I can lay my hands on first."   
  
She watched as Jason's face fell, that impossible ego of his crumpling slightly. "Please Lorelai," he was begging now. Lorelai doubted he'd sincerely begged for anything in his life, in his world where he always got his way. Always.  
  
Pained and exhausted, Lorelai closed her eyes, "Just go."  
  
Jason left, saving one parting dark glance for Luke. Luke had the presence of mind not to gloat, although he edged closer to Lorelai as Jason strode off. Even though she and Jason were over, Luke could see she was in pain and wanted only to be near her. And he could now. After years of watching Lorelai shoulder the world alone, he could finally show how much he cared without awkwardness or pretense.  
  
Lorelai was lost in thought as she followed Jason's retreating form across the square, only jolting from her trance when she felt Luke's hand upon her shoulder. She turned, and felt his shirt brush against her arm, not flanel but something crisper and cleaner. She gazed up at him, seeing but not seeing him. His hair looked softer now that it wasn't confined under that blue baseball cap.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, his thumb brushing lightly across her shoulder. "I tried to get him to leave. I figured you'd probably had enough excitement for one evening. Not that a little excitement can't be nice too just that-"  
  
Lorelai stepped suddenly away from him, "I really need to get inside."  
  
"Okay," Luke said, a touched baffled.  
  
"I mean, between naked Kirk and everything else tonight, who knows what could be going in there by now," Lorelai said as she backed her way up the stairs.  
  
"Well, the naked Kirk problem has been dealt with," Luke told her, "and as far as I know everyone else is asleep and enjoying the restful experience of staying at your inn."  
  
"Good. Thank you. Very good," Lorelai nodded. "Maybe you should be doing that too. Enjoying a good night's sleep at the inn. It is after all what you came for, right?"  
  
Luke walked slowly up the stairs as Lorelai continued to back her way into the lobby. He felt a wave of unease wash over him as he watched her set down the CDs and bandaids on the table in the lobby. She couldn't seem to look at him.  
  
"Lorelai..." he whispered.  
  
She turned, smiling a little too brightly, "'Night. I'll see you at breakfast." Without another word, Lorelai beat a hasty retreat. 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I've decided this is Chapter 2 of 3. Don't worry about our favourite couple. Just hang in there.  
  
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..........  
  
As much as Lorelai wanted to convince herself that she had left Luke standing in the lobby because she had things to do, it was well after midnight at this point and Luke had been right, everyone was asleep. A quick check on Kirk and Lulu revealed that even they had comfortably settled in for the night. Desperate to keep the mad buzzing of her thoughts from completely taking over her brain, Lorelai found herself striding across the grounds toward the darkened bungalow where her parents were supposed to have been staying that night.  
  
As she turned on the lights and stepped inside, Lorelai half expected that her parents might have destroyed the place. Perhaps Emily in a fit of rage had hurled one of the elegant vases from the mantle at her father, while her father had defended himself with a chair from the sitting room. But no, everything was in perfect order as if no one had stayed there at all that night. Come to think of it, her parents' house had that same emmaculate, unlived in quality as well and the Gilmores had lived there for decades. One big happy family...  
  
Lorelai sunk into the sitting room chair by the window, bathed in the light of the lamp on the table beside her. Her parents' marriage had never been sweetness and light but she had always counted on it being there. It was like their house and like they were, solid and unchangeable as nature. How could this have happened? If they, of all people, couldn't make it work then how did anyone else stand a chance?   
  
She was suppose to be the impulsive one. When Luke had first pulled her into his arms tonight she had understood, it was an act of impulsiveness. The logical bubbling over of years of friendship and harmless flirtation. She had been surprised by it certainly. Surprised by the raw desperation she heard in his voice. Surprised that it had been good. Really, really good. Fireworks on the 4th of July and Pavarati with a full orchestra behind him kind of good. Like his waltzing abilities, Luke's kiss had quietly blown her mind. After he had pushed her away looking startled and dazed, she'd had to kiss him again. She had to know if the magic of that kiss was real or if she had only imagined it.  
  
Then it happened. Lorelai shivered at the memory. Luke had clutched her to him and somehow, between the sparkly lights and the singing tenor, she knew... everything that the crazy townsfolk had been saying about Luke for years was true. This was not harmless flirtation. He was not trying to date her because he was alone or she was alone or he had nothing better to do with his Friday nights. He was serious about them. Very serious. Rory had been wrong about a great deal that evening but she was right about one thing. Lorelai couldn't "date" Luke. If she was with Luke, then she was WITH LUKE.  
  
Lorelai snapped back to the present at the sound of light tapping on the bungalow's door. Her head still feeling like it was stuffed with cotton and bumblebees, Lorelai slowly crossed the room and opened the door.  
  
Luke stood in the doorway with a mug in hand.  
  
"I couldn't sleep," he said quietly not quite meeting her eye. "I saw the light on here and I figured since your parents had gone that maybe... that you might still be up too and I thought... well... I don't know if this is as good as the diner's coffee. Sookie had some weird blend I'd never heard of and..."  
  
Lorelai looked from the steaming cup of coffee, to the dark sweater of the coffee bearer that looked both sexy and unnatural, to Luke who was babbling like a smitten teenager. She shook her head slowly and stepped back from the door.  
  
"Who ARE you?"  
  
Luke's head snapped up, "What?"  
  
"You with your flowers and your dancing and your spontaneous cups of coffee..."  
  
"Lorelai," he said with a small smile, "I would think by now that me supplying you coffee would be one of the cornerstones of our-"  
  
She held up her hand in alarm, "Don't say it!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"That word," Lorelai said taking a couple more agitated steps from the door. "That R word."  
  
"Relationship?"  
  
Lorelai through her hands in the air and flopped back down in the sitting room chair. Luke was completely baffled and fast approaching panic. What had happened here? They had been doing so well. He took the seat opposite her, placing the coffee down on the little antique table between them.  
  
"Lorelai."   
  
She looked up, quietly marvelling at how much he could say with only her name. A question. An act of comfort. A warning that she was being crazy. Luke was never one for a lot of words, but he seemed to make do with very little.  
  
"Everything is changing," she told him. "My parents, Rory... YOU."  
  
"I haven't changed," Luke said.  
  
"Oh no?" Lorelai said, jumping to her feet and pacing about the room. "Hi, I'm Luke and I never wear anything but flanel. Hi, I'm Luke and I hate dancing. Hi, I'm Luke and I never buy flowers for anyone!"  
  
"You said you liked the flowers," Luke muttered, but she continued to plow over him like a freight train.  
  
"You with your intentions and your right track and your book-" Lorelai gasped. "Jess' book! That was YOUR book, wasn't it?"  
  
Luke winced. It served him right for falling for someone both brilliant and perceptive.  
  
Lorelai stared at him stunned, "A self help book? LUKE is taking romance advice from a self help book?!"   
  
"I thought we were done mocking the book..."  
  
She shook her head, "Of course, it all makes sense now. The perfect recipe for romance and none of it was really you."  
  
"Now just hold on a minute," Luke said angrily getting to his feet. "I meant all of it. I meant every word I said."  
  
"But it wasn't YOU, Luke!" Lorelai cried. "Why did you have to change? Why did you have to change everything?"  
  
"Because I had to!" Luke shouted. "In all these years you've never seen... I had to make you see... I couldn't just-"  
  
"But you never asked me if I wanted it to change!"  
  
Luke's heart was pounding. After their encounter on the porch he had been sure that the shouting portion of the evening was over. Now Lorelai was staring at him, looking so scared and hurt. His precious book had never covered any of this. Everything he'd done was suppose to make her happy. Make him happy. How could he make her understand he'd done it all for her?  
  
Lorelai turned from him, "Luke, I'm sorry. I just can't deal with this right now."  
  
"Lorelai..."   
  
She shivered. He'd done it again, except this time he'd filled her name with such pain and longing that it made her soul ache. "Just go. Please, just go."  
  
Luke walked silently from the bungalow and Lorelai fought the urge to watch him leave. She knew she had hurt him. She always hurt them, these insane men who wandered into her life. If he'd only told her what he had planned, she could have warned him what a mistake he was making. He deserved far better than to cross the path of Typhoon Lorelai.  
  
.....  
  
..........  
  
Luke walked across the moonlit grounds back toward the inn. He'd done everything right. He'd done every damn thing right and it still hadn't been enough! He knew Lorelai was scared. He'd played spectator to enough of her failed relationships to know all about her tendency to bolt. It was part of the reason he'd been so careful, so meticulous in his courtship. He would make it perfect for her and then she wouldn't run.  
  
But she ran anyways. Why? Because it had all been TOO perfect. Because Luke, good old diner man, coffee supplier, fix anything at the drop of a hat Luke, wasn't capable of being that perfect on his own. He knew it. She knew it.  
  
He passed a birdbath on the path back to the inn with two happily kissing cherubs pouring water into the basin. Seeing it Luke had the overwhelming urge to kick their happy, stone heads right off their shoulders. Of course he couldn't. He could never do anything that would hurt her.  
  
The pain in his chest swelled. It felt like someone had dug out his heart with a dull icecream scoop.   
  
Heartache, he mused silently. The cliches had been right about it too.  
  
.....  
  
..........  
  
Lorelai woke lying crossways on the bed with the first rays of sunlight spilling through the bungalow's windows. At first she was disoriented but a glance to the clock on the bedside table brought it all back in flash. The Dragonfly! Her inn! Her guests! She leapt from the bed and ran out of the door.  
  
Racing through the backdoor of the kitchen, Lorelai was immediately grabbed by Sookie and pulled into a frantic hug. "Lorelai! Thank heavens! We've been looking all over for you!"   
  
"The guests. The table cloths. Breakfast." Lorelai shook her foggy head, "Need coffee before can speak in complete sentences!"  
  
Sookie pressed a mug into Lorelai's hands and something about the act made her heart twinge. She pushed the thought aside and drank deeply.  
  
"Where were you?!" Sookie asked again.  
  
"In the bungalow," Lorelai said absently.  
  
"Oooh," Sookie said knowingly. "I thought something like this might happen after Jason showed up last night."  
  
"What?" Lorelai shook her head violently, "No! God, no! No, no, no, no, no..."  
  
"Then what were you doing down there? I mean, didn't you and Rory have a room upstairs?"  
  
Lorelai dodged the question, and stepped over to peer into the dining room where the guests were already assembling for breakfast. "Are you sure everything is okay?"  
  
"Everything is fine," Sookie assurred her. "Everyone is happy and everything is going perfectly."  
  
Lorelai scanned the group taking their seats, "Where's Luke?"  
  
"Oh, Michel said something about having to check him out early," Sookie said. "Apparently something came up back at the diner."  
  
Lorelai said nothing, but her hands clutched the mug so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Yes, of course. She should have expected that. 


	3. Chapter 3

"I think we need more bedding plants in that corner there," Lorelai was saying to Jacob, the inn's new groundskeeper.  
  
"They will fill out in a few weeks," Jacob said with the infinite patience of someone who loves plants.  
  
"But they are so small and there are all those bare patches," Lorelai complained. "Don't you think just a couple more would-"  
  
Jacob smiled, "If you plant them too closely, they will strangle off each other's root systems. Best to give them a little room to grow."  
  
Strangle off each other's root system, Lorelai mused. It sounded like one of her parents' childrearing techniques. Knowing she couldn't be of more help--or do more damage--here, she left Jacob to his plants and made her way back towards the inn.  
  
It had been a little over a week since the inn's test run and a little less than a week until their official opening. Lorelai had been at the Dragonfly almost constantly during that time, driving her staff just a little crazy and working herself into exhaustion each night.   
  
What little time she had to spare, she spent with Rory. After that initial explosive night of Rory and Dean's affair--Lorelai shuddered at the word--Rory had sobered up to what they had done. The stains of hurt and shame did not come out easily, and there was little Lorelai could do for her daughter but be there for her. Lorelai had to trust that time would take care of the rest.  
  
As Lorelai walked up the front steps of the entrance she paused for a moment on the porch. She did this almost everytime she passed this way. The memory of her first kiss with Luke seemed to have been burned into the floorboards. A hundred years from now, when man was living on the moon and Bill Gates' descendents had achieved their goal of world domination, someone would walk across this porch and feel the memory of that kiss... just as Lorelai did now, as she always did when she found herself rooted to this spot.  
  
She hadn't seen Luke since that night. She had been busy. Very busy. She simply hadn't had the time to stop at the diner with everything that was going on at the Dragonfly. It wasn't that she was avoiding him. After all, he intruded on her thoughts almost constantly. Lorelai was just very busy, or so she kept telling herself.  
  
Lorelai spotted Michel coming down the path toward the inn. He looked slightly alarmed at the sight of her, as she jogged briskly down the steps toward him.  
  
"Michel! Good, I need to talk to you about something!"  
  
Michel heaved a great sigh, "Of course you do..."  
  
......  
  
............  
  
The diner was between the morning and noon rushes and there was little Luke could do but clean the counter again--for about the hundredth time. Most days he liked this quiet time, but these days when he wasn't working he was thinking and that was always a bad thing.  
  
He'd find himself mentally going item by item through that damn book trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. He would catalog every mistake he'd ever made in every relationship he'd ever had--not a lot of relationships, but certainly a lot of mistakes. And sometimes Luke would just bask in the bittersweet memory that kiss.  
  
The bell on the diner's door chimed. A customer. Oh thank God.  
  
"Rory," he said, trying not to sound as surprised as he felt.  
  
"Luke. Hi." Rory said, with a nervous smile.  
  
"You look nice," Luke said, noting the crisp dark slacks and white blouse.  
  
"Oh, job interview," Rory explained. "The Gazette needs a fact finder and I needed a job for the summer."  
  
"Congratulations," Luke smiled slightly, although inside he was beaming. She was growing up so quickly.  
  
"Well I don't have the job yet," she said shyly. "Umm, could I just get some coffee to go? Mom's been so busy with the inn that there's really nothing to eat in the house and-"  
  
"You need a proper breakfast then," Luke told her. "If you go to that interview on coffee alone, you'll be bouncing off the walls. Not the best way to make a good first impression."  
  
"Okay, I guess," Rory said, seating herself at the counter. Her eyes seemed to skitter off Luke everytime she looked at him. At last she said, "Maybe could I get the egg breakfast with hashbrowns?"  
  
"Coming right up."  
  
After Luke brought back her breakfast, he tried to go back to polishing his counter. Everytime he glanced up at Rory she seemed to be picking at her food, only eating it half heartedly.  
  
"Is there something wrong with the eggs?" Luke said finally.  
  
"What?" Rory's head snapping up. "Oh no, the eggs are great." And she took a big bite just to prove her point.  
  
Luke put down his cloth and walked over to her, "Rory, are you okay?"  
  
Rory fidgeted under his gaze. Finally she said, "Luke, are WE okay?"   
  
"What?" Luke said surprised. "Why wouldn't we be okay?"  
  
"I know something must have happened between you and Mom," Rory said quietly. "I mean, she didn't say anything--just that you and she went to a wedding and had a good time. But I know she hasn't been in for coffee in days and... well, you know how unusual that is for Lorelai."  
  
"Yes, I do," Luke said softly.  
  
"So... I figured something must have changed," Rory said. "Probably not in a... good way. I mean, if something bad was going on with you and her I thought... well, maybe it would be better if I just..."  
  
Luke's eyes widened slightly and the heartache that had lingered in his chest this past week seemed to grow threefold. "Rory, no matter what happens between me and Lorelai, there will never--EVER--be a day when you are not welcome here. There will never be a day when she is not welcome here. Do you understand?"  
  
Rory nodded, and then she reached across the counter and gripped his hand. "You are such a huge part of our lives, Luke. I don't want that to ever change."  
  
"It won't," he told her. "I promise." Rory smiled at him, the first full-blown Rory smile he'd seen in ages. Luke straightened up, trying to shrug himself back into his usual gruff demeanor. "Now, you eat your breakfast young lady and go nail that interview."  
  
After Rory left, Luke was back to his thinking and even the pretense of polishing the counter had slipped away from him. Rory's words kept playing over and over in his head. She hadn't wanted him to change. It was exactly what Lorelai had been saying that night. And Rory was afraid of a day when Luke would not be in her life--their lives--both her and Lorelai's. When Rory had said it, or at least hinted at it, the thought had terrified Luke. Rory was one of the constants in his life, just as Lorelai was. He couldn't imagine his world without either of them in it.  
  
Luke's world was filled with unshakeable constants. His diner. His apartment. His feud with Taylor. His occasional urges to kill Kirk. He had spent the better part of his life trying to keep his corner of Star's Hollow exactly the same, exactly how it had always been. His feelings for Lorelai, even when he had longed for her from afar, were among the universal contstants of his world. He had felt this way for so long that his feelings slipped around him like an invisible glove, always with him even when she wasn't.  
  
It had never occurred to him that others had their unshakeable constants too.  
  
"Lane!" he called into the storeroom. "I'm going out! Hold down the fort!"  
  
......  
  
............  
  
Lorelai was hovering around Dragonfly kitchen. Sookie and her helpers were experimenting with a new pastry dessert and Lorelai only task at the moment seemed to be making a nuisance of herself.  
  
"I'm not sure about these curtains," she was saying, examining them with great interest.  
  
"Honey, the curtains are fine," Sookie told her.  
  
"But they're so lacey," Lorelai said. "They'll get all black from the grease in here. Maybe we should swap them with the ones in the reception area. They might be more practical."   
  
Sookie came towards Lorelai with a basket of blueberries in her hands and inclined her head with a half smile. "What?" Lorelai asked.  
  
"I need the sink," Sookie told her as sweetly as she could.  
  
"Oh, right. Sorry," Lorelai said stepping aside. "So what do you think about the curtains?"  
  
Sookie turned on the tap and began rinsing the blueberries. "You know, I just remembered. I think Tom was looking for you. Something about needing to put sealant... umm, somewhere."  
  
"Ooo, sounds like important construction-speak," Lorelai nodded. "I should go deal with that right away."  
  
Sookie grinned, "Yes. Yes, you absolutely should."  
  
"Remind me and we'll talk about those curtains later," Lorelai said as she stepped out the backdoor.  
  
"Uh huh, absolutely!" Sookie called after her.  
  
One of Sookie's helpers handed Sookie a bowl for the blueberries. "Thank you," he muttered emphatically under his breath. Sookie nodded as she rolled her eyes.  
  
......  
  
............  
  
Lorelai had barely gone six steps from the kitchen's backdoor when she saw something that stopped her in her tracks and probably stopped her heart in her chest. It was Luke, striding down the path towards her. Scruffy, backward cap, flanel-wearing Luke. As he got closer, Lorelai fought to find something to say, her mouth opening and snapping shut like a goldfish. Soon, he was standing infront of her smelling like coffee and burgers and reminding her of a hundred things she missed.  
  
"We need to talk," Luke said.  
  
"I.. I really need to find Tom," Lorelai stammered. "Something about sealant. I think it's important. You're a construction type... Sealant sounds important, right?"  
  
"Please," Luke said. "This will only take a minute." And before she could find another argument, he took her by the elbow and lead her to off the path to a small grove of birches trees behind the stables. Once there he let go of her and turned away, running a nervous hand through his hair before replacing his baseball cap.  
  
Lorelai shifted uncomfortably in the silence. "Luke, I really don't know what to say."  
  
"Don't say anything then," he told her. "I just need you to listen, okay?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
Luke took a deep breath and looked at her. "I'm not good with words," he said. "That was why I.. I got that stupid book. I can never seem to find the right words when I'm around you." His hands had started to tremble, so Luke shoved them in his pockets. "You were right. I always said I hated dancing but it was because I never had the right person to dance with. And I never bought flowers for someone because I never had someone I wanted to buy flowers for. I wanted to do those things for you, but I... I never meant to change on you. You have to believe that."  
  
Lorelai nodded, her usually expressive face unreadable. Luke sighed and pressed onwards, "And, if you don't want things to change between us, I can understand that. My life is filled with things that I would never change and would never want to change. But you need to know that, no matter what happens, I will always be here for you. Always. There is nothing you could do that would ever pry me out of your life... unless... unless that's what you really wanted."  
  
It hadn't been many words, but now that they were out of him Luke felt deflated. Lorelai was still staring at him and he knew of nothing else he could say to her.  
  
"Luke," she said quietly. "Are you... are you in love with me?"  
  
Luke felt his breath catch and he found himself staring intently at his shoes. Finally he nodded very slightly. He heard the rustle of leaves and shut his eyes thinking Lorelai had chosen to walk away. Instead, a moment later, Luke felt slender hands pulling his own from his pockets. Dazed he looked up into her face.  
  
Lorelai was staring intently at his chest, lightly touching his flanel shirt. She was like a butterfly that had landed by chance on his arm and Luke was afraid a breath might scare her off again.   
  
Not lifting her eyes, she said softly, "You know, you never had to change anything for me. I mean, you probably needed to get my attention because I am notoriously dense. But you... you never needed a book or a fancy outfit or anything like that."  
  
Luke nodded silently.  
  
She looked into his face, "Don't change, okay? Even the part... the part about us... the part about the way you..." Lorelai closed her eyes and laid her head against his chest. "Don't change anything," she whispered.  
  
Luke raised a shaky hand to run it over her hair. "Okay," he said.  
  
She looked up at him and he smiled tentatively at her. "May I..." Luke knew he was pressing his luck, but he managed to force the question out anyways, "May I kiss you?"  
  
Lorelai slowly reached up and clasped his face between her hands. His heart threatening to pound its way out of his chest, Luke leaned in and kissed her. He tried to keep the kiss gentle and undemanding, afraid he might scare her off again. But Lorelai pulled him closer and her lips seemed to be seeking out an answer that only they knew how to find. Luke felt the walls slip as they had that first fateful night. His arms clasped her tightly and into his kiss he poured everything he could not say, could probably never say, because there are no words that could possibly hold it all.  
  
When they at last broke apart, Lorelai looked at him with a strangely satisfied expression.  
  
Luke's eyes were so blue. Had they always been blue? Stupid question.  
  
She then turned and looked up at the clear sky peeking between the birch trees. Luke pulled her into his arms and looked up, trying to see what had caught her attention. He felt a foolish grin creep across his face as he asked, "What ARE you looking at?"  
  
"Nothing," she smiled warmly at him. "Just checking."  
  
......  
  
............  
  
I never saw blue like that before  
Across the sky  
Around the world  
You've given me all you have and more  
And no one else has ever shown me how  
To see the world the way I see it now  
Oh, I, I never saw blue like that before  
-- Shawn Colvin  
  
......  
  
............  
  
A/N: Yes, I'm afraid that's it. Thank you for reading. :) 


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